Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar

"I Survived a Suicide Attempt."

Pablo Escobar is a student, researcher, and dog owner. He was 29 years old when I interviewed him in San Francisco, CA, on April 15, 2013.

People tell me all the time, “Your suicide [attempt]—it’s not really serious, it’s not that big of a deal,” which, to me, seems kind of weird.

I don’t think it was extreme, like, violently, but I think the intention was definitely really real, and the fear was real. I remember at one point thinking like, “This is the last thing I’m gonna see and then I’m dead, and this is how I’m gonna feel and then I’m gonna die.” It was not pleasant.

No one’s pain and no one’s suffering and no one’s desire to do that is less than someone else’s, you know

We have this belief that the more aggressive and the more violent and the more destructive it sounds, the more serious of an attempt it was… But, I mean, an attempt is an attempt. No one’s pain and no one’s suffering and no one’s desire to do that is less than someone else’s, you know, and they all deserve some sort of recognition and aide.

How I stopped it – I just kind of, one day, went through everything and I thought, “Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Do you want to be this person that… at the end of the day no one is out there trying to hurt you. You are the only one who is hurting yourself. You are the only one hitting yourself. You are the only one cutting yourself. Do you really want that?”

And I was like, “No, I don’t.”

One, I don’t want to explain. Sometimes, you know, if it was down a little more on my arm it had been visible, and I don’t want anyone to see that. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to walk around wearing long-sleeved shirts. I didn’t want to walk around bloody nosed or bruised all over, you know?

So, I just kind of thought, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. This is my goal. I don’t want to do it. How am I gonna start it?”

The way I deal with stuff is I try to stay active by exercising, doing stuff, and also rewording everything.

The way I deal with stuff is I try to stay active by exercising, doing stuff, and also rewording everything. For some reason that kind of works for me. If things seem bad or if I’m all of a sudden I’m starting to get really down and I want to do something, I just breathe, you know, take a deep breath and just kind of…

Like, before, for example, I would say, “I’m worthless because blah, blah, blah.”

Now it would be like, “Okay, you feel worthless.”

It’s just getting into the habit of recognizing it and then putting the brakes on it. And you just kind of keep doing that.

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Live Through This is a series of portraits and true stories of suicide attempt survivors. Its mission is to change public attitudes about suicide for the better; to reduce prejudice and discrimination against attempt survivors; to provide comfort to those experiencing suicidality by letting them know that they’re not alone and tomorrow is possible; to give insight to those who have trouble understanding suicidality, and catharsis to those who have lost a loved one; and to be used as a teaching tool for clinicians in training, or anyone else who might benefit from a deeper understanding of first-person experiences with suicide.

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Please Stay

If you’re hurting, afraid, or need someone to talk to, please reach out to one of the resources below. Someone will reach back. You are so deeply valued, so incomprehensibly loved—even when you can’t feel it—and you are worth your life.

If you don’t like talking on the phone, you can reach the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741. If you’d like to talk to a peer, warmline.org contains links to warmlines in every state. If you’re not in the U.S., click here for a link to crisis centers around the world.

Live Through This is dedicated to the lives of so many friends and family members lost to suicide over the years. If you would like to add the name of a loved one to this list, please email me.

Live Through This is dedicated to the lives of so many friends and family members lost to suicide over the years. If you would like to add the name of a loved one to this list, please email me.